The Island by Ragnar Jónasson

Sequel to The Darkness. Super quick, Great read!!!!

The Darkness by Ragnar Jónasson

This novel grabbed my attention because of its protagonist. A 64yo female detective about to retire who decides to investigate the death of Russian asylum seeker. The girl's death had been dismissed as suicide but the detective is not sure about that. 

First time I read about an old female detective. The novel has everything, her (old fashioned) detective work, past trauma and the psychological effects of her imminent retirement. She cannot imagine life without her job. A super interesting protagonist, a gripping murder mystery and a quick read.

The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis by David J. Chalmers in Science Fiction and Philosophy from Time Travel to Superintelligence Ed Susan Schneider

This a 47 page paper originally published in Journal of Conscious Studies 2010. It looks into the possibility of a Singularity and its impact on humanity which may “force us to think hard about values and morality and about consciousness and personal identity.” 

A singularity involves an intelligence explosion and possibly a (technology) speed explosion. However in order to determine if there will be an intelligence explosion we “need to understand what intelligence is and whether machines might have it.” The paper discusses how we are far from understanding how a brain works, how it can be intelligent, and be conscious. We are slowly progressing in understanding the mechanics of the brain but we don’t know what makes it conscious. 

The author makes a distinction between AI (human-level AI), AI+ (artificial intelligence more intelligent than us) and AI++ (super unimaginable artificial intelligence) and discusses ways to achieve them. For example by brain emulation, brain enhancement, or direct programming or machine learning. In terms of the possible consequences of a Singularity we need to explore our role in it. Chalmers predicts 4 possible outcomes: Extinction: which is obviously undesirable Isolation: which is unattractive akin to cultural and technological isolation Inferiority: could diminish the significance of our lives. Integration: we become superintelligent too.

Chalmers supports integration (of course) and proposes ways to achieve it through Uploading. Uploading means making a digital copy of the brain in processes which could or not destroy the original brain. Questions which arise are: Will an uploaded version of me be conscious? And Will it be me? Excellent Thought Provoking Read.

Machine by Elizabeth Bear

This the second White Space Novel. The first is Ancestral Night which I read a few months ago. I think Machine is slightly better than Ancestral Night. 

This novel explores the effects a malevolent software meme has on Artificial Intelligence and on the Synarche, a galactic society comprised of hundreds of alien races and including Artificial Sentience. The quick spread of the virus takes by surprise the staff of a galactic hospital which is run by AI and by organic beings with artificial implants which can also be infected. The ramifications of a virus infestation of a galactic scale are very well explored and are food for thought. I also found it interesting how the Synarche considers organic and Artificial life equal (except that AI have to pay for the price of their creation by working) in rights and in wrongs. AI can also be reported for crimes. Also, as the story involves the rescue of an ancient human generation ship we are able compare old humans' mindset with the synarche's advanced way of thinking. At the same time we question the synarche's use of "rightminding" in their citizens to correct sociopathies and any way of thinking which threatens their society. We realise that rightminding can be used as a way for social control and brainwashing but the synarche's citizens see it too?

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

I found about this novel (and The Cement Garden, which I already read) in a YouTube video about disturbing books. Go check Plagued by Visions "Most disturbing books Series" Playlist. This book is OK but I think the Cement Garden is better. Both are very well written with a nice compelling prose. But I prefer the subject matter and the overall story in the Cement Garden. 

The story follows a couple on holidays Mary and Colin. We don't know where but we follow them in their utterly boring holiday activities and conversations. That is until the couple meet Robert, a local. Robert starts an interesting conversation about his childhood. I thought OK now things are getting interesting. But then we go back to Mary and Colin dull selves. 🥱 However near the end things get more interesting again and *freaking disturbing* with Robert and his wife flipping around an otherwise meh story. I think this novel is worth reading just for its twisted, mad ending. And it is only 100 pages.

Science Fiction and Philosophy. Edited by Susan Schneider. Part III Mind: Natural, Artificial, Hybrid, and Superintelligent.

I read the first half of this Part which comprises: 

1.Robot Dreams. A well-known short story by Isaac Asimov with Susan Calvin as protagonist. It explores the dangers sentience in robots may bring to humanity. 

2. A Brain Speaks by Andy Clark - a short story (?). It reads like a monologue by a Brain explaining how its Person, John, is unable to understand how his brain works and how alien it would seem if John could actually see or understand it. 

3. Cyborgs Unplugged by Andy Clark. The chapter starts by suggesting that rather than building artificial earth-like environments for space exploration we should look into the alteration of humans to cope with the demands of space. Clark starts this way to make a point of how our future lays in space and how to better adapt to it. The essay then discusses cybernetics (the study of self-regulating systems by control and communication), homeostatic systems (mechanisms which correct deviations in a system by dragging them back to original settings), and the cyborg (cyber organism) which contains "exogenous components extending the self-regulating control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments". Some examples of cybernetic implants are given, in animals and humans. The author reflects on how these technologies could be deeply and fluidly integrated with the organisms and the profound transformation in our lives, projects and live-styles. The case of cognitive systems is discussed in which integration is not as important as the “fluidity of information” between organism and machine. To exemplify this Clark presents the case of airline pilots piloting airplanes with computers which are able to make decisions. This situation could be thought of as humans becoming part of a temporal cyborg system in which the information flows from the computer to the pilot. Clark makes a case for a kind of cyborg which does not need implants or any alien technological device inside the body. Using tools from cybernetics he describes cyborgs using (electronic) tools outside the body, so integrated in their everyday life that they are "invisible in-use" making it difficult tell where the "person stops" and where the "smart world begins". In fact our brains need not extra effort to work this way because they are already doing it, for example by receiving inputs from body subsystems which operate unconsciously while holding a pen to write. In fact a lot of our activities are "invisible in-use" to the brain. This could be thought of as symbiotic relationships which “expand and alter the shape of the psychological process that make us who we are". Because of this Clark thinks that humans are "natural-born cyborgs". 

4. Superintelligence and Singularity by Ray Kurzweil. Actually this is the first chapter of Kurzweil’s famous book The Singularity is Near: When Humans transcend biology. Here Kurzweil explains how according to him, the evolution of technology grows in an exponential fashion rather than linear. This means that the more our technology progresses the faster it evolves. See for example how in the 19th and first part of the 20th century science and technology generation lasted more than one human lifetime whereas now several generations of science and technology could happen within one human generation. A point of interest within the exponential curve is the knee of the curve, where imperceptive growth turns to explosive growth. The knee of the curve will certainly reached when we achieve a technological singularity. Kurzweil emphasises crucial role the exponential nature of technological development has for forecasting or speculating on the (short or far) future. The chapter follows by dividing earth’s (and human) progress in 6 epochs: 

1. Physics and Chemistry: atoms to form molecules and so on. 

2. Biology and DNA: DNA appears and with it life. 

3. Brains: creation of information processing mechanisms. 

4. Technology: from simple mechanisms to super computers. 

5. The Merger of Human Technology with Human Intelligence: kicked by the Singularity. It will “enable our human-machine civilisation to transcend the human brain’s limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections.” 6. The Universe Wakes Up: human (biological and technological) intelligence will spread to the rest of the universe.

The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray

The first line in the synopsis says “In the Madness of Crowds" Douglas Murray investigates the great derangement of ‘woke’ culture and rise of identity politics. And yes that is what the book attempts to do. First by providing brief historical overviews, then by providing contemporary, current examples of “madness” and finally by drawing out conclusions. 

The book is divided in 4 chapters or Themes. Each Theme is at the same time a category (segment, kind…) of people, a political statement (an ideology, ) and according to Murray a source of division and fights. The chapters are: 

1. Gay 

2. Women 

3. Race 

4. Trans 

All these themes touch on historical discriminations and battles fought and won. Rights conceded, respected and awareness established. Murray says there is so much work to do and the situation is not yet perfect but it is better than before. However, according to him, instead of finding peace these groups turn to use the tactics of oppression previously used by their oppressors. I could summarise the main message this book tries to convey in: 

The “Woke” movement is a dogmatic movement. A religion supporting a metaphysical understanding of our societies. Concepts such as Social Justice, Identity Politics and Intersectionality are not based on facts and have brought division rather than solved problems. 

Sexuality is an unstable thing to base "identity" on. 

The LGBT Community is divided. It is not a cohesive group. There are historical rivalries inside. The LGTB label is not a good foundation for a Liberal society. 

1. In Gay, Murray highlights how western societies have changed their understanding of certain phenomena. For example, now, when a straight person turns out to be gay, people say they have found their truth. However, when a gay person turns straight the interpretation is that there is something wrong with that person. This way of thinking is new and completely opposite to the one existing only a few decades ago. Murray also highlights the way Gay activists have worked for years to prove (convince?) that gay is a “hardware” issue (they are born this way) and not a software issue (a result of cultural influence). The last bit in chapter 1 discusses Marxism and other (postmodernist?) theories (e.g. Foucault’s Power) which are used as foundations to develop interpretations of reality by some social scientists. Murray mentions Judith Buttler, Peggy McIntosh and particularly Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe whose work, widely cited, is one of the main foundations of today’s identity politics. They call for a reinterpretation of “class struggle” by identifying a new class(es) of “exploited” people such as: women, racial and sexual minorities, anti-nuclear and anti-institutional movements. Murray draws a consistent argument criticising the those theories as lacking solid foundations, which do not answer any questions nor make any predictions and which cannot be falsified. In an effort to prove how the social sciences (I didn’t like the generalisation) are lacking rigour he exposes a couple of cases of academics led by Peter Boghossian who submitted (bogus) articles to peer-reviewed social sciences journals, articles which where accepted, published and then removed when the editors realised they had been victims of a “joke”. One of the articles was titled “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct”… draw your own conclusions. 

2. In Women, Murray starts by showing how, perceptions of sexual behaviour towards women have changed in recent years. He presents some examples from Hollywood personalities doing things in public which were found funny less than 10 years ago, but which if done now, would be subject of criticism. Other cases are presented in which feminist women fighting against male privilege, and other social barriers actually owning a series of privileges which they themselves do not acknowledge. In his discussion of feminism Murray states that the latest feminist waves lack the focus and clarity of the first 2 waves. Women then fought for tangible rights and triumphed. Murray particularly criticises the sector within the feminist movement which take on intersectionality and presents some examples which showcase their contradictions. 

3. The Race chapter made me think a lot. Murray talks about Martin Luther King and his ideals focusing on colour blindness: “people should not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of the character”. The author contrasts King’s ideals with today’s race campaigns. There are a lot of examples of incidents given in this chapter some of them in universities, places where everyone should be free to speak their ideas. Hard stories but also sad showing bullies, racists, violent, intransigent people unwilling to debate. What all these stories had in common, from my POV, is how colossal the rage of black people is. I felt more rage in this chapter than in the others. And I am not sure if this is a consequence of social justice activism only but I think that the non-black side of society can do much more to help than what it is doing at the moment. 

4. Trans was the most difficult chapter to read for me. Not because it was too technical, because it wasn’t, but because of the examples shown truly justified Murray’s choice of “the Madness of Crowds” as a title for his book. The pronoun issue was the least problematic issue he discussed. However, the issue of trans surgery on children hit me hard. Among all letters in LGBT, T is the “least certain and destabilising of all”. There has been little if any study of transgenderism. Murray criticises trans activists who instead on focusing on paving the road by clarifying this issue: by focusing on intersex people, a matter know for decades if not centuries and which is a physical, tangible fact, a hardware issue, instead of focusing on intersex, trans activists practically ignore them and focus on the software issue, on people who “say” they are in the wrong body, something that is hard to prove, and difficult to study. Certainly there could be more than one answer to this phenomenon, but activists insist on only one solution, drugs and surgery which are irreversible. On top of that there is the metaphysical layer of constructs which is intended to support why identity can contradict physical reality. For example man who can become a woman by only saying “I’m a woman”.

While Murray does a good job portraying the Madness of social justice, identity politics and intersectional activism, I think this was, perhaps, no more than one side of the picture. If this is a war (a cultural war) and we are presented in detail the contradictions of one of the sides, where is the other side and what (good or bad) are they doing? 

This is a good book and a recommend everyone to read it. However I'd like to read more about other perspectives ...